Chapter 220: Chapter 220: Going Through the Back Door (Edited)
At that moment, amidst the aroma of roasting meat, Tom seemed to understand the meaning of the two verses: it was a hint of something crucial! It seems that following these two verses leads to the "key" to the ruins of the city, and Guiza, the kebab and the friend seem to have come true. Tom meets his friend's brother in Guiza, and then he himself gets a new clue at the kebab store.
The rest of the keywords were museum, knowledge, cats, ruins, and Nubia at the night market, and with Aswan at the beginning of the verse, Tom thought a trip to the city of Aswan seemed necessary.
Aswan is an important city in southern Egypt, located on a major transportation route, gateway to Black Africa and the only access to the interior of Africa by sea. Aswan is also considered the cradle of the Egyptian nation and was an important trading city between Egypt and Nubia; it is said that the ancient Egyptian word for "trade" was "Aswan".
This city is worth visiting with or without a clue; indeed, there is much to see in Egypt, which has inherited the cultural heritage of ancient Egypt.
Tom was quick to decide on his next stop.
"Thanks, Bill."
Bill yawned and waved his hand, unconcerned.
"It's just a clue that hasn't been deciphered in a hundred years, but if you follow it and find the City, send me a letter so I won't have to worry about my performance for years to come!"
At that point the waiter also brought three glasses of an Egyptian dessert. The drink is said to have originated in the Fatimid dynasty of the 10th century AD. The Egyptians had a sweet tooth and liked to add lots of honey, icing and dried fruit to their desserts, and the dessert was no exception.
It is a dried fruit preserved in apricot juice, which also looks a bit like a fruit salad. It is filled with "yarmulkes," dried fruits, such as dried dates, dried apricots, prunes, etc. It is also topped with a mysterious local Egyptian condiment: kama'edin, a kind of apricot jam.
Egyptians enjoyed it during Ramadan, when it was the perfect refreshment after a full day of fasting.
Hermione picked up the cup, shook it gently, let the nuts sink to the bottom and took a sip, noticing the aroma of other nuts mixed with the apricot jam. The nuts in the cup had been soaked, cooked and cooled, and had become soft and juicy.
The sweet and sour combination took away the greasy taste of the roasted meat and anything fried.
Watching Hermione's eyes narrow into a crescent shape, Tom tried the drink as well, and it was so good he decided to take some nuts in the package with him.
After saying goodbye to Bill, Tom and Hermione headed for the National Egyptian Museum.
When Tom arrived at the ticket booth with a glass of cold juice in his hand, he found it empty. He found the ticket agent in the shade, who was eating lunch, and was told that tickets were sold out.
"At the National Museum of Egypt you have to book in advance, and today's tickets are already sold out." The slim ticket-taker was sitting in the shade, waving his hand impatiently at Tom, who had a small, rapidly spinning fan in front of him, trying to dissipate the heat from his body.
"We're tourists from England...", Tom thought, as there were probably tickets reserved for foreigners at these types of attractions.
The ticket agent frowned and said impatiently, "The British have had no privileges since His Excellency Nasser came to power!".
Tom was making an empirical error, the local Egyptian population did not have the same spending potential, the vast majority of museum visitors were foreigners and there were no special privileges for foreign visitors.
The ticket agent no longer wanted to talk to Tom and the two got into an argument. Hermione, however, tugged on Tom's coat, indicating that he should leave. Sure enough, a few steps behind him was a man in a white turban.
He had a thin face, a lip mustache, bright eyes, and a megaphone on his belt.
"Museum guide, 350 Egyptian pounds a day, do you want one?" 350 Egyptian pounds is a lot of money, the freshly squeezed juice in Tom's hand weighed only 2 pounds - it was the juice of three large oranges, and Bill's meal had just cost less than 200 pounds.
"But the museum doesn't have tickets." said Hermione with a smirk.
"There are always tickets," she said looking up at the sky, "It's noon, I can give you both a £300 discount and I can take your picture, look how pretty this lady is, in ancient times she would have been an old lady. It would be a shame if we couldn't get some pictures together."
Hermione smiled.
"Okay," since you can spend money to solve the problem, let's pay with money. Tom pulled out two ten pound bills and handed them to him. The turbaned man waved them twice and happily put them in his wallet, giving Tom 120 Egyptian pounds in change.
He then led Tom and Hermione across the street and around the circle to the parking lot at the back of the museum, where there was a small gate for staff entrance and exit, and where a young security guard, who looked like the man, was smoking a cigarette.
The hooded man approached the young man, smiled at him, the young man looked around, saw that no one was looking, and gently opened the door a crack, dislodging the barrier inside.
"Come straight in." He whispered.
Both Tom and Hermione were stunned, they actually entered through the back door this time.
The hooded man led the pair in a straight line.
"Actually, there's no other way. It's because you were too late. All the tickets we got here sold out in the morning. He spread his hands, helpless, "But in my hands, there's no business that can't be done!".
Not that a guy who would think of saying something like that is bragging.
Tom entered the museum in the most magical way possible.
They traversed the long corridors, the bustling halls, and came to a secluded side room.
"Follow me, and I'll make sure you get through the museum before it closes for the afternoon, without missing a single room." Abdullah was a true professional, always skillfully avoiding crowds and assigning Tom and his team to the less crowded galleries, often leaving before a large tour group entered, or leaving after a large tour group had entered one of the galleries.
Not only was he very well organized, but Abdullah was very eloquent and explained the origins of the various objects and the interesting historical facts they contained as fast as a machine gun.
He seemed to know everything, but Tom could tell that he had only memorized the most famous objects in the gallery and the ones with stories: he used them to draw the two's attention away from the rest of the collection.
Chapter 221: Chapter 221: Museum, Knowledge, Legacy (Edited)
The Egyptian National Museum is a two-story stone building, with the galleries on the ground floor arranged clockwise according to the development of ancient Egyptian history, from the times of the Old Kingdom to the era of Roman domination. However, unfortunately, Abdullah sought a smaller audience, so Tom and Hermione did not visit the galleries in chronological order. After the visit, they were taken to the first floor of the museum, which is dedicated to thematic rooms, such as the coffin room, the mummy room, the jewelry room, the painting room, the funerary objects room, the prehistoric relics room, the Tutankhamun room, the papyrus room, and many more.
On the first floor, instead of rushing to the famous Tutankhamun room, Abdullah headed to the mummy room in the southwest corner of the first floor, which, according to Abdullah, is the most fascinating part of the Egyptian museum. It houses the mummies of over 20 Egyptian pharaohs and their consorts, who have survived for thousands of years and remain in perfect condition, with visible hair and nails.
"This is the mummy of Ramses II, from the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom, which existed between 1317 and 1251 BCE, over three thousand years ago, but his remains are the best preserved. This pharaoh was the first in Egyptian history to conclude a peace treaty with a foreign enemy, the Hittites, hence the name of this room [War and Peace]." Abdullah introduced Tom to the mummies in the mummy room.
He even asked Tom to come closer and see the face of the legendary pharaoh. [Note] Ramses II is considered one of the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt. He led the army at the age of 10, ascended the throne in 1213 BCE, lived for 90 years, and reigned for 67. His reign marked the last great era of the New Kingdom of Egypt.
Tom became interested in the mummy of such a pharaoh, so he approached.
Ramses II's mummy was so well-preserved that one could see his appearance before his death. The mighty pharaoh had been reduced to a withered corpse, devoid of the aura of power and splendor, but wrapped in a fine linen cloth for all to see.
Tom was separated from the noblest man in the world by a glass case.
Perhaps the pharaohs thought their empire and royalty would last as long as the pyramids, but time has taught them that all of this is nothing but sand in the desert, that rain and wind will blow it away. The mighty empire vanished, the solid pyramids crumbled, and only the most fragile flesh of the pharaohs survived.
Ramses II's mummy, unearthed in 1881, was so poorly preserved that in 1974 it was found to be infested with fungi and insects, and it had to be sent to France for conservation and restoration...
Instead of letting Tom dwell on the memory of ancient Egypt, Abdullah took him to the legendary Tutankhamun Room. Inside, there are over 1,700 excavated objects. "The Golden Mask," "The Golden Coffin," "The Golden Throne"... Each of these artifacts could be a museum treasure on its own, but here they are piled up. This is the legacy of ancient Egypt, the last reverberations of a brilliant civilization.
Tutankhamun, with his short reign and lack of accomplishments, had such a lavish burial, but what about all the other famous pharaohs? A pharaoh like Ramses II, who ruled for 67 years, couldn't have been buried with less than Tutankhamun, right?
Unfortunately, thousands of years of excavations have nearly destroyed them. It's possible that there were more magnificent funerary objects than the "Golden Mask" or the "Golden Throne," but most of them were unearthed by tomb raiders, who took the gems and melted the gold...
"The Golden Mask was made to resemble the king's appearance, with an eagle and a cobra representing the rulers of Upper and Lower Egypt.
His golden coffin is made of 450 pounds of pure gold, the most exquisite and grandiose goldsmithing in the history of humanity."
Tom closely examined the intricately carved and painted golden coffin. Hermione followed suit, not drawn to the golden coffin or the golden face, but instead gazing intently at Tutankhamun's throne. It wasn't the throne's shine that interested her; it was the portrait on the backrest of the throne that truly captivated her.
"You see, the armrests on the front of the seat depict an eagle with a snake's head, representing the royalty of Upper and Lower Egypt," Abdullah began, pointing to the portrait on the seat, noticing that Hermione's attention wasn't focused on the treasure or the royalty. "The backrest of the throne portrays the royal family, with the queen in the sunlight, gazing at the beloved queen. In the sunlight, the queen affectionately caresses the king on the throne, and they look at each other in harmony. It is said that the innermost chest of Tutankhamun's golden coffin was unearthed with a bouquet of withered flowers, a sign of the queen's enduring love."
Indeed, Hermione was fascinated by the pharaoh and queen's love story.
"So?" she asked.
"So?" Abdullah froze for a moment and flashed a bitter smile. There were many artifacts in this museum that he couldn't name or contextualize, but the story of Tutankhamun's chamber, which he had studied well, meant that he truly knew it.
But he couldn't say it.
What could he do? Tell the girl in front of him that Tutankhamun had died at the age of eighteen, that the powerful had seized the throne after his death, that his beloved queen had been taken by the powerful, that she had given birth to a son, and that no history had been written since then?
He couldn't say it, as he looked into Hermione's expectant eyes.
All he could do was helplessly shake his head, saying that he didn't know.
Hermione felt a bit disappointed.
The three of them left Tutankhamun's chamber and headed to the papyrus room, where Tom saw a familiar face: Dr. Hunter and an elderly gray-haired man standing in a corner of the room, the lights dimmed so that if Tom hadn't been observant, he wouldn't have distinguished them. Following Tom's line of sight, Abdullah also spotted the elderly man and was slightly taken aback.
"Curator Siddiq?" He was a little surprised, not expecting to see the museum director here. What surprised him even more was that their arrival had alerted the two men, and one of the commissioner's guests had greeted them.
"Doctor, I didn't expect to see you here." Hermione approached Hal and greeted him.
"Yes, Dr. Siddiq was a friend of my father." Dr. Hunter smiled and nodded, while pulling Tom and Hermione closer. "Look!"
A dodecagon appeared before them.
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